The image was stark. Wilmer Flores, the 23-year-old Mets shortstop, pacing around his mark in the outfield. Eyes red, bottom lip quivering. He spits, exhales, chews his gum, shakes his head. Flores broke a sporting taboo on Wednesday night by crying on the outfield at Citi Field, and, like the tears down his cheeks, sympathy and support rolled in.
Surreal scene. Mets trade Wilmer Flores but leave him in game. Flores then cries on field while playing. pic.twitter.com/0CDpjGpwpS
— Jimmy Traina (@JimmyTraina) July 30, 2015
Why did Flores cry? In part, because of a misunderstanding. Flores thought he was going to be traded to the Milwaukee Brewers, in deal that would bring star hitter Carlos Gomez to New York. Rumors of the imminent trade filtered through mid-game. Was this to be Flores’s last appearance as a Met? Still in the game, he guessed it would be. He was hurt, upset, emotional – and so he cried. Sometimes, in sport, it just all gets too much.
“During the game I heard about I was getting traded,” Flores told the media after the game. “I got emotional, and when I came in they told me I was not traded.”
When Flores came into bat in the bottom of the seventh inning, he received a standing ovation from Mets fans, as they watched him take what they thought would be his last swings as a Met. Flores is well liked in Queens, “a shortstop in progress who has displayed impressive power to go with an uncertain glove”, as the New York Times put it. But for various reasons, the trade collapsed. Flores will be staying put – at least for a while.
Crying in sport. Is it still taboo? It doesn’t happen that often. Flores showed emotion, but he also revealed the similarities between athletes and us mortals. Sports stars aren’t robots. They might be better-looking, richer, and slightly more monomaniacal than us, but they’re human too.
Soccer star Paul Gascoigne famously cried in England’s World Cup semi-final against West Germany in 1990 after a yellow card ruled him out of the final. Tears rolled down his face. Gascoigne’s tears were real, because a bad thing had happened to him. His explanation was one we could understand: “When things are good and I can see they’re about to end, I get scared, really scared. I couldn’t help but cry that night.”
That’s the funny thing about tears: you can’t stop them. Feel overwhelmed, and it’s tough to turn the tide. Top athletes have the ability to keep their emotions in check: to shut out their nerves and insecurities, and do in matches as they do in practice. To go alongside their talent, dedication and hard work, professional athletes possess a almost supernatural mental strength.
But sometimes it slips. Laura Bassett, who scored an own goal in England’s World Cup semi-final against Japan last month, burst into tears almost immediately. It was the last kick of the game; there was no time to right her mistake. Her hands around her face betrayed her shock and disbelief.
Andre Agassi cried as he bowed out of tennis at the 2006 US Open. Was it joy or sadness? “Never more than at that moment did Agassi seem so vulnerable, looking far older than his 36 years,” reported the AP, and Agassi told the spectators on court: “The scoreboard said I lost today, but what the scoreboard doesn’t say is what it is I have found. Over the last 21 years, I have found loyalty. You have pulled for me on the court and also in life. I found inspiration. You have willed me to succeed, sometimes even in my lowest moments, and I’ve found generosity. You have given me your shoulders to stand on to reach for my dreams, dreams I could never have reached without you.”
But Agassi was soft-spoken and sensitive. We could imagine him getting emotional. Andy Murray’s tears when he lost in the Wimbledon final against Roger Federer in 2012 were so heart-rending precisely because Murray seems so in control of his emotions. He tried to the tears back by cracking a joke, by blowing out his cheeks, but he couldn’t stop them. His sadness and disappointment shone through. It was just too much.
Tears represent a sliver of vulnerability in usually otherwordly people. We think sportsmen and women are impregnable, but the heart-rending Bubba Watson, Derek Redmond, John Terry, Jana Novotna would suggest otherwise. They’re people like us.
Well done Wilmer Flores. Here’s to more tears in sports.
